@booklet {7588, title = {Beyond the Gates}, year = {1883}, note = {

U.K. ed. London: Chatto \& Windus, 1883.\ Selections of Beyond the Gates rpt. in Daring To Dream: Utopian Stories by United States Women, 1836-1919. Ed. Carol Farley Kessler (London: Pandora Press, 1984), 111-16 with an editor\’s note on 104-06.\ The three volumes were published together as Three Spiritualist Novels by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. The Gates Ajar (1868) Beyond the Gates (1883) and The Gates Between (1887) (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), with an \“Introduction\” by Nina Baym (vii-xxiii). The Gates Ajar is on 1-138, Beyond the Gates on 139-232, and The Gates Between on 233-340.

}, month = {1883}, publisher = {Houghton, Mifflin}, address = {Boston, MA}, abstract = {

Heaven as a eutopia in line with the Swedish thinker Emanuel Swedenborg (1668-1772) and the American spiritualist Andrew Jackson Davis (1826-1910), who published descriptions of what he called the Summer Land in a number of books between 1847 and 1878. The Gates Ajar presents a heaven in which one is reunited with relatives and gives a glimpse of a more fulfilling life for the female protagonist. Between the Gates is the eutopia of the series in that it is explicitly a criticism of the current social order as it affects women and shows a Heaven in which women can lead fulfilling lives. The third volume, Beyond the Gates, focuses on a domineering man who is reformed in heaven. The Gates Ajar provoked considerable controversy. Attacks include J.S.W. Antidote to \“The Gates Ajar\”. London: Aylesbury, 1870. 2nd ed. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1871. U.S. ed. New York: G.W. Carleton, 1872; \“The Gates Ajar\” Critically Examined. By A Dean [pseud.]. London: Hatchards, 1871; \“The Gates Ajar\” Criticised and Corrected. By An Englishwoman [pseud.]. London: Geo. John Stevenson, 1872; E[dgar] Stanway Jackson, Faith or Fancy? An Examination of \“The Gates Ajar\”. London: Elliott Stock, 1871; Charlotte Elizabeth Tidy, The Door Was Shut: An Answer to \“Gates Ajar\”. London: William Macintosh, 1873; and Watching at the Gates. A Reply to \“The Gates Ajar\”. London: S.W. Partridge, [1871]. A defense is What Shall We Say About \“The Gates Ajar\”. Some Thoughts Suggested by the proposed \“Antidote\”. London: Elliott, [1871].\ In her \“Introduction.\” Three Spiritualist Novels by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. The Gates Ajar (1868) Beyond the Gates (1883) and The Gates Between (1887) (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), Nina Baym rejects the label utopian for the novels because \“they lack the Utopian thrust toward realizable social reform\” and places them in the context of spiritualism (viii). Carol Farley Kessler calls Beyond the Gates a utopia in \“A Heavenly Utopia--Heaven for Women.\” Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1982), 20-42. So does Lori Duin Kelly in her \“Phelps\’ Religious Writings: Household Saints in a Feminist Utopia.\” The Life and Works of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Victorian Feminist Writer (Troy, NY: Whitson Publishing Co., 1983), 25-47.

}, keywords = {Female author, US author}, author = {Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911)} }